Thomas Walsh was out for a walk with his 5-year-old German Shepherd named Diesel when the dog started barking at his owner. They were at the town line separating Stoneham and Medford, Massachusetts, and Walsh could tell Diesel was trying to communicate something to him. As he looked around he noticed a man who had fallen through an icy pond and was struggling to reach the shore.

A 22-year-old man had fallen through the ice on Quarter Mile Pond around 1:45 on Wednesday afternoon. He was apparently riding his bike across the pond when the ice gave way, plunging the man into the freezing waters below.

Speaking to news station BOSTON 25, Walsh shared:

“Ripping across right in the middle, he went right through. I’m surprised he didn’t go through near the edge.”

Walsh credits his dog with being a hero, since he had his earbuds in and said he never would have heard the man’s cries for help.

“He’s the hero today, because without him, seeing or hearing him I would have just kept walking,” said Walsh.

After he noticed the man struggling in the pond, Walsh called 911 and then set about trying to assist the man.

“I told him to try to relax, catch your breath because he was panicking, you know what I mean,” said Walsh. “My instinct was to go in and help him, I’m a great swimmer but you can’t do that in the winter time.”

He told the man to try and scoot across the ice, but the surround ice had become so weak from the initial break that the man kept falling back into the water.

“When he fell in that time there was another fellow walking through the woods, and I tied the dog to a tree and I grabbed a big branch from another tree and we threw it in and he was kinda too weak to grab onto it and pull it,” said Walsh. “So he finally held on with his other hand and we kinda just dragged him through the water and got him up on shore.”

Soon afterwards, the Stoneham fire department arrived and took over tending to the man, transporting him to a nearby hospital where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries. In a written statement, Stoneham Fire Chief Matthew Grafton praised Walsh and Diesel for their quick action:

“We are grateful for this outcome and for Diesel alerting his owner that something was wrong. The two men who helped the patient get to shore did the right thing by calling 911 immediately and using a branch to help pull him in rather than trying to get in the water themselves. These actions helped to save a man’s life this afternoon and are nothing short of heroic.”